[LNM: No posts for half a week, then two posts in less than 24 hrs. So it goes. Here's this week's installment from TheCandyMan.]
Hey folks, it's the Candyman. Sorry to post on Friday... I know many of you are busy! If you're in a rush, I humbly suggest printing out the post before Shabbat (click on the title of the post, then press 'Print'). You'll have plenty of time to look it over once the sun sets.
Last week, I mentioned the early Pharisaic rabbis. In the formative days of Rabbinic Judaism (the forerunner of Orthodoxy), a vicious debate raged in Jewish communities: was there life after death? The Pentateuch, of course, makes no such promise. You get a peaceful and long life for keeping the mitzvot/commandments, nothing more. (There's no mention of any messiah, either.) The Talmudic rabbis thus pondered: Resurrection of the dead, from whence in the [written] Torah? The answers they give are midrashic/exegetical in nature and hard to understand. The debate is still going on.
The story of Joseph is interesting in this regard, because its running theme is deliverance from death. The theme expresses itself through a number of literary devices, the first of which is the plot. Joseph is a man who is saved from the brink of death, over and over again. Furthermore, Joseph is believed dead by his family (Gen. 37:33, 42:22), to the extent that his brothers don't even recognize him when they see him. When Joseph finally reveals himself, then, he is a man come back from beyond the grave. Joseph becomes a "lifegiver" for both Egypt and for his brothers, saving them from the famine. Joseph saves lives on the spiritual plane, as well as the physical one. When he is found to be alive, Joseph’s father Jacob – hitherto fated to die in perpetual sadness over his son – is described (v. 45:28) as having his “spirit brought to life" (or "spirit resurrected"). In addition, through Joseph, the guilt-ridden brothers are given a chance to redeem themselves. Rescue from death, whether physical or spiritual, is an idea that surfaces again and again in the plot of the Joseph story.
Repeated phrases and keywords also function to highlight a theme of deliverance from death. The verb “to live” (HY in Hebrew) appears to function as a keyword, appearing frequently in the narrative. A repeated phrase in the narrative is “and we shall live and not die!” (Gen. 42:2, 43:8, 47:19) The phrase is uttered by Jacob, Judah, and the Egyptian people, all of whom are rescued by Joseph in one way or another. Another refrain is “still alive,” used seven times in the narrative referring to either Jacob or Joseph (v. 43:7, 43:27-28, 45:3, 45:26-28, 46:30). The phrase is especially conspicuous at the climax of the story, the revelation of Joseph’s identity to his family.
A final clue to the this theme is the use of the symbolic pit in Joseph’s two falls. Joseph suffers two major setbacks in his life: first, his kidnapping at the hands of his brothers, and second, his imprisonment at the hands of Potiphar's wife. In both cases, his fall is depicted in the Biblical imagery of death: he is cast down (and raised from) a pit (v. 37:19-28, 40:15), an image that in the Jewish Scriptures is suggestive of the grave (for example, see Jacob’s speech of “going down” to Sh’ol here in 42:38; for an explicit reference to the “pit,” and its identification with Sh’ol, see Ps. 30:4, Proverbs 1:12). This emergence from the grave is a symbol of resurrection, or at least deliverance. Joseph is twice rescued from the pit, rescued from death, brought back to life.
The plot, language, and imagery of the Joseph story all point to a major theme of the story, deliverance from death/resurrection. But why did this author(s) include this theme? The closely related question: what did resurrection mean to its original readers (who probably didn't believe in heaven)? That discussion will have to wait until next week.
[Author's note: I'm working on a publication that includes these ideas, so they are under copyright. Please don't reproduce them without my permission!]
18 comments:
Well Candy Man as usual I am your friendly antagonist. I am unaware of any nonbelief in an afterlife among ancient peoples, certainly in the Middle East. The Torah alludes to people who "slept with their fathers" and were gathered to their people when they did no such thing being buried away from them. Shmuel is said in Sefer Shmuel to have lived beyond death through his spirit that Shaul wanted to conjure up for advice. Were these people exceptions? Of course not.
I think the point of disagreement was whether there is a resurrection, or coming back from the dead (tchiat hameytim). I believe that the prevalent Middle Eastern belief was that dead people go do into an Underworld (Sheol or Hades), but there was no chance of coming back.
Is the Candyman a cereal killer?
RG,
>I am unaware of any nonbelief in an afterlife among ancient peoples, certainly in the Middle East. The Torah alludes to people who "slept with their fathers"
If the idea of resurrection/heaven are so central to Judaism, why does the Pentateuch never mention them? All the stated rewards in the Pentateuch are earthly by nature: longevity, prosperity, and peace. Why does Moses not promise us a heavenly reward?
How do you explain such statements in Psalms as "lo hamaitim y'hall'lu ka"... the dead cannot praise God?
As for the "ancient peoples" - keep reading.
E-kvetcher,
>I believe that the prevalent Middle Eastern belief was that dead people go do into an Underworld (Sheol or Hades)
Yup. The idea of a personal judgment and heaven did already exist in *Egypt*, but not in Mesopotamia. To quote Gordon and Rendsburg (pp 60): "The Babylonians and Assyrians never developed it. And in Israel, throughout nearly all of the Bible, the afterworld was considered a dreary underground place called Sheol, where the good and bad alike led an eventless existence. Indeed the later Jewish Christian, and Islamic concept of the afterlife, as on in which the individual is rewarded or punished based on his earthly record, is more akin to Egyptian views than to those of the Hebrew Bible."
Read more here: http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=BWmBUBre55QC&dq=gordon+and+rendsburg&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=UlQIZoZlT1&sig=-DLJv6nUCPTVcvWoOD_hKCZG6oc#PPA62,M1
http://stm.typepad.com,
>Is the Candyman a cereal killer?
Well, I do enjoy a bowl of Life cereal every now and then. But if you're making an obscure reference to Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic, I doth protest. That issue about the cereal killer convention still gives me nightmares.
I'm just that guy in shul/synagogue who gives your kids candy. *If* you send them over to me.
A little Sandman is certainly relevant to our discussion of the occult and otherworldly. Check Gaiman's graphic novels next time you go to the library. They're great!
Candyman, all very good and nice. But life and death are commonplace in many many stories. What's the indication that the authors/redactors consciously and purposely had a specific theme of life in mind? Or where's the indication outside this story, i.e. in the blessings or elsewhere, that Joseph, more than anyone else, is associated with "life"?
Without the two above, it sounds just like any Rabbi's sermon. I.e. pick a concept and plug it in. (Swap and say!)
"If the idea of resurrection/heaven are so central to Judaism, why does the Pentateuch never mention them?"
It's not that it is so central to Judaism that it needed to be mentioned. But it was there certainly the belief in another world. Also the belief in justice prevailing enunciated by Avraham calling G-d the judge of all the earth would make it make it that there would be a repose for the dead. If it was so unknown you would think that the concept would have to be spelled out. Instead it is just implied. Sheol you admit was the next world. If Sheol was yet so dreary why would it be called sleeping with one's fathers and being gathered to their people. Shmuel is presented by the witch to Shaul as saying sking why he disturbed him from his eternal rest.
"All the stated rewards in the Pentateuch are earthly by nature: longevity, prosperity, and peace. Why does Moses not promise us a heavenly reward?"
Assuming your right why should he?
"How do you explain such statements in Psalms as "lo hamaitim y'hall'lu ka"... the dead cannot praise God?"
They don't certainly we in ordinary language still refer to dead people in terms of their bodies and yet this was after the time yet of Shaul wishing to conjur up the spirit of Shmuel.
"As for the "ancient peoples" - keep reading."
Well give one example. I'm all ears. The fact is even cavemen believed in an afterlife.
Come on..the concept of afterlife was on of the beliefs that Jews took from Egypt. Just like we adopted corned beef, pistrami & stuffed cabbage from Eastern Europe.
>If the idea of resurrection/heaven are so central to Judaism, why does the Pentateuch never mention them?
Kohelet does not mention it either, but by the time it was written, the idea of an afterlife already existed.
baal habos,
>What's the indication that the authors/redactors consciously and purposely had a specific theme of life in mind? Or where's the indication outside this story, i.e. in the blessings or elsewhere, that Joseph, more than anyone else, is associated with "life"?
Yes, I like the way you are thinking. Thinking like a scientist, demanding proof. I do despise the "swap and say" sermon... it's evil. But how to distinguish the author's original intent? This is the million-dollar question.
Unfortunately, there is to my knowledge no standardized way of measuring the "correctness" of an observed theme or motif in Scripture (or any other literature). I think such standards are something that we should try to develop.
For me, part of it comes down to numbers. The repetition of "still alive" seven times and "live and not die" three times in the Joseph story is striking. The root HY ("to live") appears in 6.2% of all the verses in the very long Joseph narrative. Comparatively, the frequency of that root in the rest of the Torah is only 2.4%.
But the kicker is the repetition of Joseph being thrown down into a pit, and raised up fro it. Sure, maybe that's just the way it happened. But to me it smacks of a symbol - the grave. Given the story's emphasis on lifesaving and survival, and the importance of Joseph's bones later on in the story, it fits. But how do you quantify such a thing?
That's why we need to take a census of the most obvious themes in the Torah and start quantifying their usage of various literary devices. There are plenty of obvious themes, e.g. the barren woman redeemed, the firstborn that loses his portion. And usually, as you say, you can detect popular themes in more than one narrative. That will establish the yardstick by which we can measure the validity of other proposed motifs and themes (some of which are not so popular as to be "global" themes and appear in many places... they are just "local" themes).
For what it's worth, the idea of resurrection comes up again in the Tanach, explicitly. Although Joseph is not mentioned by name there, I think those passages do help explain why resurrection is a featured theme in the Joseph story of all places. I'll elaborate on exactly this point next week.
RG,
>But it was there certainly the belief in another world.
I see no indication in the Pentateuch that the word Sh'ol means anything other than "grave."
>Also the belief in justice prevailing enunciated by Avraham calling G-d the judge of all the earth would make it make it that there would be a repose for the dead.
I disagree. In the Pentateuchal mindset, God judges mankind while they are living, not after they have died.
>Sheol you admit was the next world. If Sheol was yet so dreary why would it be called sleeping with one's fathers and being gathered to their people.
I admit no such thing. The Pentateuch perhaps recognizes that people believed in ghosts (Ob and Yidoni), but nowhere does it validate that belief. In some places in Tanach the concept exists that spirits live on in the Sh'ol. Other parts of Tanach seem to contradict this, as I have argued (the only reward for good deeds is this-worldly, "the dead cannot praise God," etc.). Check out the book of Psalms, just open to a random one. The essence is, "Save me, oh God, because I'm no use to You dead; the righteous live long and peaceful lives, while the wicked perish young." It's possible that there were different schools of thought on the afterlife even at the time.
As for "sleeping with the fathers," you have mentioned this many times but I still don't get it. "Sleep" is a euphemism for death in many languages.
Now if it said "eating with the fathers," that would be more like it.
As for "keep reading," I just meant read my response to e-kvetcher. Babylonia and Assyria never developed a concept of heaven.
We do disagree, but I think it's more semantics and posturing than anything else. We agree that Sh'ol is mentioned, and we agree that heaven is not mentioned explicitly, and possibly not at all. I think we both recognize that the truth lies within a certain small range of possibilities. This is good. I appreciate the opportunity to hash this out.
Holy Hyrax,
> Kohelet does not mention it either, but by the time it was written, the idea of an afterlife already existed.
Actually, when I suggested that Koheles didn't know about an after life in my post on him (link to post) Orthoprax pointed out this passage as evidence to the contrary.
3:21 - "Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?"
But based on Koheles' basic theme I don't think he believed in an afterlife even if he may have heard of the concept.
Whatever ancient Jews believed or didn't believe can be debated. Yet, to me it is clear that resurrection or afterlife was not a dominating factor in their beliefs, in the sense of determining their behavior or explaining the world, until the second temple era, when it becomes a major theme.
By this time in history, the Jews had, on one hand, an elaborate contract with God including beliefs about reward and punishment, and on the other hand, the experience of the world not actually working the way the Torah says. So the Jewish leaders (rabbis) had to come up with a way to explain all of the bad things that befell them.
They didn't pull it out of a hat, as others here have stated, there were probably kernels of preexisting ideas among Jews and among surrounding cultures, that made it ripe for the rabbis to start emphasizing the importance of afterlife. This, of course, coincides with the birth of Christianity, which resulted from the same feelings of desperation and weariness of worldly events.
So Rabbinic Judaism, including the afterlife, and Christianity, were two different responses to events in the region at that time, which tried to make sense of the world.
"I admit no such thing. The Pentateuch perhaps recognizes that people believed in ghosts (Ob and Yidoni), but nowhere does it validate that belief. In some places in Tanach the concept exists that spirits live on in the Sh'ol. Other parts of Tanach seem to contradict this, as I have argued (the only reward for good deeds is this-worldly, "the dead cannot praise God," etc.). Check out the book of Psalms, just open to a random one. The essence is, "Save me, oh God, because I'm no use to You dead; the righteous live long and peaceful lives, while the wicked perish young.""
That doesn't prove anything. We talk of people being dead in terms of their bodies even when we believe they have an afterlife.
"As for "sleeping with the fathers," you have mentioned this many times but I still don't get it. "Sleep" is a euphemism for death in many languages."
Sure it is a euphemism but if you say "sleeping with his fathers" or "being gathered to his people" it should mean being somehow with their ancestors or people respectively. If it did not always mean so physically as we see in different cases in the Torah then it means spiritually.
"We do disagree, but I think it's more semantics and posturing than anything else. We agree that Sh'ol is mentioned, and we agree that heaven is not mentioned explicitly, and possibly not at all. I think we both recognize that the truth lies within a certain small range of possibilities. This is good. I appreciate the opportunity to hash this out."
I do too. The issue isn't even a literal place called heaven. The Rambam did not believe in such a place. The issue is an afterlife.
You have to realize something also. If you are to argue that a lack of focus on the afterlife means not believing in it then the Talmud is inexplicable in its attitude as it hardly greatly defining its terms for the afterlife. The world to come is a term that is used for the perfect age to come and also used for the afterlife. The Talmud gives no great care to saying which one it means in each case. What was emphasized more was the resurrection and the world to come on earth. That was the point of dispute with others and may have exerted an especially great hold because of the hope it gives in this world. Since when in the ancient Jewish books of the East is systematic dealing with all beliefs given? That was a later frame of mind from the revival of Greek philosophy. Does the Talmud contain all Jewish belief? No, much less would the Torah written before sectarian days. It would even be unrealistic to claim that if a belief is not stated in the Torah but is stated in other books of the Tanach that it was not believed in.
I suspect that the belief in " Techiot Hamayeem" comes from the Egyptians. If we lived among them we probably picked up some of their beliefs. They built all kinds of monuments to those who died. They included food for the journey to the other world and other things that they might need there. Besides practically all other religions believe in an after life. Maybe when we evolved with bigger brains we understood what death was and did not want to believe that it was the ultimmate end. Who knows........Avi
jay, Avi, anon,
You all suggest that resurrection ideas came from Egypt. Sounds about right to me. But which Egyptian exile do you have in mind? The Bible mentions at least two big ones.
drj,
You are one (or two) steps ahead. But why did the notion of resurrection, specifically, become so important? What did resurrection mean to the post-exile audience?
RG,
I agree with your assessment of the Talmud's "world to come." The famous Talmudic tradition that "subjugation to the (foreign) government is the only difference between our world and the world to come" comes to mind. Similarly, there is a Talmudic opinion that Hezekiah was the messiah. For what it's worth, there are also plenty of places in the Talmud where the world to come is clearly referring to heaven after death. But at least there was debate about the issue!
What *burns me up* is that the *current* Orthodox establishment (read, the OU) has completely forgotten a huge side of that debate. From day school to yeshiva, the rabbis promise us a literal heaven, resurrection, and messiah. Pure folly.
Well folly or not I agree with you we should learn our history.
Candyman said:
"drj,
You are one (or two) steps ahead. But why did the notion of resurrection, specifically, become so important? What did resurrection mean to the post-exile audience?"
I think that afterlife is more for the individual-- giving comfort and a sense of personal eternity. Resurrection is more at a communal/national level-- that there will be justice and salvation in THIS world, too, not just the next. That is what Mashiach is about. (According to Rambam...). So as Rabbi Akiva is being burned alive, Jews took comfort not only in knowing that Rabbi Akiva's soul lives on, but that there would be ultimate justice and salvation for the Jewish people.
I think when saying prayer today that refer to resurrection we have to be creative in our understanding of it.
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